Thursday, 23 February 2017

JOHN JACOB NILES and GO AWAY FROM MY WINDOW

In many ways the songs on PAST LOVES are no more than
remembered remnants from a past life And, with GO AWAY FROM MY WINDOW, it is
difficult to know if I ever knew more than the two verses I sing on the album

However, in preparing the track for release it became
necessary to locate the composers of the songs and that task brought me to the
door of John Jacob Niles

I suspect he is very well known to folk singers throughout
the world But as I have never really been one I knew nothing about him until
now Of course I wish I had known about him sooner and I would very much have liked to know the complete lyric

GO AWAY FROM MY WINDOW has been recorded by many others but
I would recommend the very real performance of this superb song by the man who
wrote it

There's not much to say about my own bit performance but I
will feel better about it if it becomes in any way responsible for introducing
others to JOHN JACOB NILES

Below the image is more information about him and the song It was taken from Wikipedia

Composer, collector, and balladeer John Jacob Niles, was
born in Louisville, KentuckyApril 28, 1892.

Niles
came from a musical family. His great-grandfather was a composer, organist, and
cello manufacturer; his mother, Lula Sarah Niles, taught him music theory. In
1904, Niles's family moved to a
farm in rural JeffersonCounty
where John Jacob began collecting folk music. By 1907, Niles composed his first
song, "Go 'Way from My Window," based on a line of song collected
from an African American farm worker.

Concerning "Go 'Way From My Window," John Jacob
Niles wrote:

"In 1908 my father had in his employ a Negro
ditch-digger known as Objerall Jacket. As he dug, he sang, "Go way from my
window, go way from my door" -- just those words, over and over again, on
two notes. Working beside Jacket all day (I was sixteen at the time), I decided
that something had to be done. The results were a four-verse song dedicated to
a blue-eyes, blond girl, who didn't think much of my efforts. The song lay
fallow from 1908 to 1929, when I arranged it and transposed to a higher key.
"Go 'way from My Window" was first sung successfully in Berlin,
Germany, in 1930. It has
gone a long way since.The lyrics for the song are on the next post and the link is http://sosaidthesap.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/jjniles-lyrics-for-go-way.html